Category: Bible & Science

Here are three resources that discredit today’s widely-accepted myth that Bible-based resistance to evolution is analogous to the church’s initial resistance to Galileo. The truth is that evolutionary theory today is more analogous to the geocentrism that prevailed in the time of Galileo.

Tim O’Neill, who is an atheist and a prolific writer on Quora has written “The Galileo Affair” (10 min read; 2,427 words, plus bibliography) as his answer to the history question “What is the most misunderstood historical event?” Tim says:

In fact, many of Galileo’s staunchest champions and defenders were churchmen and many of his attackers were fellow scientists.

Tom Gilson rightly points out how scientists sometimes go too far in their pronouncements. And this is true not just of scientists, but perhaps even more often by people speaking on behalf of science.

Because science cannot observe or measure the unseen dimension (that is, the spiritual dimension) of creation, it will always be of limited use to human beings. The knowledge of God, by contrast, is always useful.

This is an 11:46 video on the subject of how Genesis speaks about creation. It includes Alistair McGrath, John Walton, John Polkinghorne, Peter Enns, and N. T. Wright.

They are advancing a non-literalistic interpretation of the creation narrative, and they say things helpful to appreciating the cultural context in which Moses wrote. Their point is, and it’s a good one, that the Bible is not trying to teach us science. Nevertheless, the video is not that helpful when it comes to discussing the elephant in the room, which is, of course, evolution and whether or not it can be reconciled with entirety of the Bible.

Berlinski is not a Christian; he’s an agnostic. However, that actually makes his skewering of scientific pretensions all the more effective. Theism has been practically driven out of science as it is being driven out of every other corner of the public sphere. Only individual faith will keep it in.